Who can answer?

On page 39 of The Dawkins Delusion Alister McGrath quotes Peter Medawar as saying, in The Limits of Science:

That there is indeed a limit upon science is made very likely by the existence of questions that science cannot answer, and that no conceivable advance of science would empower it to answer…I have in mind such questions as:

How did everything begin?
What are we all here for?
What is the point of living?

Doctrinaire positivism – now something of a period piece – dismissed all such questions as nonquestions or pseudo-questions…

So far so familiar. But what I really want to know is – who or what can answer the last two questions? (The first seems in principle a scientific question, even if science can’t in fact answer it.)

Who can answer those questions? What discipline can answer those questions? Plenty of people and some disciplines can offer answers, of course, but who can really answer them, in the sense of offering an answer that really is an answer?

As far as I know the answer is no person and no discipline. Does that make me a boringly out of date positivist? Or were the positivists maybe not quite so boring and out of date as people like to paint them? I don’t know, so I won’t belabor that. But I will belabor the first part. Those two questions are obviously subjective questions and as such not answerable in the normal way. It’s like asking ‘Does caviar taste good?’ There is no one answer to that, and there’s no one answer to Medawar’s questions, either.

Maybe what he meant was not so much ‘answer’ as ‘explore’ – but if so, then science can’t really be excluded after all. Science could perfectly well contribute to an exploration of those questions, as could many other disciplines. That’s especially true since for a lot of people the point of living is to find things out and what we are all here for is to increase human understanding.

I’m sure you already know that. I just felt like saying it.

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34 Responses to “Who can answer?”

I think that most people who ask this rhetorical question, “Can science answer questions X, Y and Z?” know full well that their chosen religion can’t answer them either. Yet, that religion *can* answer them is exactly what they mean to imply. The question is not being asked sincerely. It is a lie.

Yes, infelicitous, but also untestable, hence outside the scientific paradigm.

Pat Robertson seems to be a loon, but you hear a lot of lunacy like his from people in the ‘prayer warrior’ mindset. Interesting to note that unlike other loons he was already apparently donating substantial sums in Haiti.

There is no such thing as “purpose”, or rather it exists in the same sense that anger and insanity do: inside our heads.

Purpose implies goals, goals imply preferences and preferences imply some sort of emotional state. The universe doesn’t have emotional states (or at least there is no evidence suggesting that it does), so it can’t have an inherent purpose.

We can have purposes for the universe, but those are our purposes, born of our goals and preferences.

So as far as I can see, the only answers that can be given for 2 and 3 are:

The last two questions are really lingering remnants from the argument of design. I think this becomes more obvious if you substitute “we” for another species.

For example;

What are rabbits here for?

What is the point of a sycamore tree living?

These are essentially the same questions. The answers provided by science to the rabbit and sycamore problems are simple (the point of a rabbit and a sycamore tree is to make more rabbits and more sycamores in order to function as entropy catalysts).

From a design viewpoint you get answers like “rabbits are here to look cute and cuddly” or “rabbits are there to feed the fox” and “sycamores are there to look pretty and to keep the sun off us on hot Summer days” (I am constantly amazed that these sorts of design arguments are what convinces most people of the existence of God).

Actually, Sigmund, I think you went a clause too far there: The purpose of a rabbit is to make more rabbits and the purpose of a sycamore tree is to make more sycamore trees, period. Organisms can certainly be described as incidentally accelerating entropy in their immediate environs, but the “in order to” phrase would seem to imply that this is a *part* of the purpose of organisms rather than just something they happen to do because that’s the way the universe works. I’m pretty darned certain it’s the latter. :-)

I suppose religion purports to answer those last two questions in such a way that makes people feel important and special and not so fleetingly insignificant. Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw once, saying “Jesus loves me . . . but no-one else does.”

Cosmology explores this. As yet, it has not arrived at a generally accepted answer. Hawking has speculated on the lines that the ‘big bang’ singularity, if there was one, was not a beginning, any more than the north pole is a beginning of south-ness: maybe time runs backwards ‘before’ the big bang, somewhat as you can walk straight across the north pole without noticing, and then be going south. The religions can’t answer this question at all, other than by the cop-out that it was magic.

What are we all here for?

Philosophers have made sensible suggestions about this, and psychologists have explored what purposes individual humans and specified societies construct. I agree with James K (and Julian Baggini?) that the best answer is ‘it’s up to you’. I would add that it follows that there will never be agreement on what we are all here for. The religions offer only revolting answers, such as to serve ‘god’ in this world and enjoy perpetual happiness united with ‘him’ in the ‘next’, or to escape from a supposed cycle of rebirth, possibly, horror, as a slug, or, greater horror, as a woman.

What is the point of living?

Ditto, pretty much. Some philosophers have answered ‘none’. Trivially, biologists observe that all conscious living organisms appear to be programmed to try to stay alive. And human psychologists and psychiatrists explore why some humans irrationally want to die. Sometimes there is indeed no point in living. Cruel adherents of some of the religions appear then to answer that the point is limitless suffering until you die ‘naturally’.

Paul Thagard here at Waterloo (atheist and prolific man of science) argues that cognitive science can help give us a definitive answer to the last two questions: “to work, play, and love”. So he would say that science can and does permit of answers.

I don’t know whether or not he’d be on board with the division of labor between exploration v. answers in the treatment of the question, though. He would probably emphasise the role of inference to the best explanation. So he would say that whichever “exploration” is the best, ought to be treated as an answer.

I think there are answers, Ophelia. I don’t know what you mean by “offering an answer that really is an answer.” But I wonder if you mean “offering an answer that is an empirically verifiable fact”, in which case you’re begging the question. I.e., you’re assuming the validity of positivism as a precondition.

As for who can answer the question: Philosophers of different stripes, not just academic ones, but anyone who has thought seriously about values and ethics and purpose. Novelists. Artists. Anyone who’s lived a full and varied life. Anyone who’s suffered. We will get multiple answers from these people, but the multiplicity doesn’t make the answers less real or less valuable.

I don’t think those questions are “obviously subjective” in the same way that “does caviar taste good?” is subjective. Maybe “does chocolate taste good?” or “does vomit taste good?” would be better comparisons. There’s an element of subjectivity, sure, but people share enough in common that there’s also an element of objectivity.

By ‘offering an answer that really is an answer’ I mean something like ‘indisputable’ or perhaps ‘rationally indisputable.’ Or, if you like, simply ‘objective.’ An answer that’s not obviously simply a ‘for me’ kind of answer.

A little aside from the point, but its a little ironic that McGrath is turning to Medawar for support. I can’t help thinking of the line from Sir Peter Medawar’s ‘Memoirs of a thinking radish” (not verbatim, my memory isn’t that good) – “I once picked up the bible in a hotel room. A most Unchristian book, I thought. I phoned my wife and told her to keep it away from the children.”

Another thing: why can’t people acknowledge the ambiguity in “how” and “why”? “How” can be asking about the method or procedure used (“How do you get wine stains out?”) or about causal antecedents (“How did my coat end up on the floor?”). Similarly, “why” can be used to ask about intention (“Why did you do that?”) or, again, about causal antecedents (“Why is my coat on the floor?”). I feel like this ambiguity is part of what causes people to conflate intention and causality (which must be related somehow, but not necessarily in the common-sense way).

I’ve read people trying to say that science can ask “how” but not “why,” but the above observation pretty much puts the lie to that I think. The better way to say it is that science can address “how” or “why” in the sense of discussing causal antecedents but can’t answer “why” questions when the question is about intentionality rather than causality.

I guess I’m just grousing because the people who are so quick to point out that there are questions science can’t answer are exactly those people who put almost no thought into which questions it CAN answer.

I’m inclined to agree with Jen, and disagree with other posters earlier in this thread, when she argues that the questions do have some meaning. (Or at least they have underlying inquiries that can be made meaningful.) However, to belabor the obvious, if we accept that the questions are meaningful then we are faced with our old friend NOMA. If we don’t say that science can answer these questions, then we’re left to say that non-science must be able to. (Maybe religion, maybe not.)

What’s nice about “inference to the best explanation” as a scientific maxim is that it corrodes NOMA straight away. We can say things like “happiness” or “work, love, play” and think that’s the best explanation to make sense of the data, then that’s what science tells us. So science does provide answers to these questions.

What I find curious is the contrary opinion. For if we accept Coyne’s insistence upon the continuity between science and philosophy, then it seems we should be happy to say things like “science tells us to x”.

“Or at least they have underlying inquiries that can be made meaningful.”

Well of course – but that’s just it. Any nonsense can be made meaningful by helpful people reworking it – but that doesn’t make the nonsense itself meaningful. The questions as presented can mean anything and everything, or nothing.

If somebody sends me a really crappy article (which pretty much never happens), I can re-write it in such a way that it’s a decent article. But that doesn’t mean the original article wasn’t crappy.

I’m not sure that analogy works. “What are we all here for?” isn’t a useful question on the face of it, but I think “what is the point of living?” certainly is. And if we treat the questions as equivalent after a charitable reading, as many here have claimed we can, then we’re led directly into a fight with NOMA.

Okay. Well whatever the comments say, my post didn’t say the questions were meaningless – it questioned whether they can be answered. I don’t think the questions are necessarily meaningless, but I also don’t think they can be (genuinely) answered.

I think religion relies on an equivocation about the word ‘answer’ when talking about this kind of thing. It means one thing when saying ‘science can’t answer’ and another when implying ‘religion can answer.’

Then the question is, why not? Our best explanations in science just might have an answer. Maybe we’re selling science short by saying it can’t or doesn’t. (Or at least I think that might be what Paul would say.)

Also, no spookiness here — it’s not a coincidence. Paul’s interested in hearing what atheist blogs have to say so he asked me for my list of go-to places. I mentioned B&W of course. (I was going to leave this mysterious, though it just happened to bear on the present post — so there you have it.)

Haha – oh, so the research assistant she mentioned was you. Cool. (Sad about the spookiness though. Oh well – there’s still that time I estimated the length of a walk as about 3 thousand steps and looked at my pedometer when my left foot reached the intersection of the path to the shorline path and the shoreline path – to find that the dial read 3000.)

Now when you say our best explanations in science just might have an answer – you mean the same thing as what I mean by saying science could contribute to an exploration as opposed to an answer (taking ‘an answer’ to mean a definitive answer), right? Or not.

To put it another way, I decidedly think our best explanations in science just might have an answer – just not one that anyone can be expected to take as definitive in the way anyone can be expected to take factual answers to be definitive.

OB: that’s a pretty high bar to set for “answer,” don’t you think? “Rationally indisputable”? Most questions (including scientific ones) can’t be answered if that’s the definition. I don’t think that’s a practical definition of “answer” for that reason. I think these questions can be answered in the same way that most practical questions can be answered: in a “this answer is good enough to act upon, for now” kind of way. Answers don’t have to be definitive. They just have to be good enough (substantiated enough, reasoned enough) to act on.

I don’t think religion is saying science doesn’t have an objective answer, by the way. I think the thrust of the religious objection is that science doesn’t have a satisfying answer.

Jenavir, well, yes, but then that’s not the bar I set. I was tentative about it.

“By ‘offering an answer that really is an answer’ I mean something like ‘indisputable’ or perhaps ‘rationally indisputable.’ Or, if you like, simply ‘objective.’ An answer that’s not obviously simply a ‘for me’ kind of answer.”

Something like; or perhaps; then an alternative. And I wasn’t offering a definition of the word, I was trying to pin down what is meant when people say ‘science can’t answer’ various rather ill-defined questions. If one pins down the meaning in a certain way, then science can; if one pins it down in another way, then no one can. Maybe there’s a third way of pinning it down such that science can’t but other kinds of inquiry can – but I suspect that if there is then that version of ‘answer’ is a non-obvious version.

(Waterloo is spook central in terms of B&W-related coincidences. i.e., my office is right next door to the daughter of a prominent poster on this board. And Chris Mooney came over for tea and biscuits not long ago.)

I guess it depends on your notion of “answer”. It seems like you’re talking about the meaning of sentences (or questions). Of course, you allude to the fact that strictly speaking there’s no such thing as sentence-meaning, because sentences (including questions) are always understood by some interpretation or other.

Still, some interpretations are more powerful than others. When we think our interpretation is very powerful, in the sense that we expect it to be understandable across lots of different kinds of contexts, we say, “This is what the sentence means”. So if the way we pin down the meaning of the sentence gives us more bang for our buck than the alternative ways of pinning it down, I’m tempted to say that is what it means. It’s like inference to the best explanation, except better characterised as inference to the best definition.

We cannot point to a single definitive solution of any one of the problems that confront us — political, economic, social or moral, that is, having to do with the conduct of life. We are still beginners, and for that reason may hope to improve. To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind. There is no need to be dismayed by the fact that we cannot yet envisage a definitive solution of our problems, a resting-place beyond which we need not try to go.

Medawar, Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Exeter, 3 September 1969 (italics added)

I think that, in the quotation that McGrath so likes, Medawar was merely asserting that science, narrowly understood as physics, chemistry, biology, and the like, can’t answer ‘What are we all here for?’ But I hope Medawar would have agreed that philosophy is nobly struggling towards answers. OB is right, as usual, that there probably won’t ever be an answer accepted by all rational humans.

‘Is there a point in living?’ can, I think, only have ‘for me’ answers. Charlotte Raven gives a notable one today. She is diagnosed with Huntingdon’s disease, one of any supposed creator’s cruellest little blunders.

“there probably won’t ever be an answer accepted by all rational humans.”

And if that is true, then it’s a kind of cheat to make a special point of the fact that science can’t answer such questions. (Yes even if it’s Medawar doing it! Or Freeman Dyson, or S J Gould, or Francis Collins.) If the subject is questions to which there really is no universal – no solid, no factual, no beyond a reasonable doubt, no evidence-based, no conclusive – answer, then the fact that science along with everything else can’t answer it becomes simply trivial, and makes no more of a point than ‘science can’t turn the sun into a daisy’ is.

I notice that he uses the rhetorical move where something old is therefore wrong. Always puzzles me when theists use that one. Related rhetorical move: philosophical school X has a few problems so is not wholly correct – therefore anything that sounds a bit like philosophical school X is automatically totally and completely wrong without any argument being required. beats thinking…